Walking-Stick Papers eBook

At length in going a journey comes a time when one
tiredly shrinks from the work of speech, when observation
dozes, and thought lolls like a limp sail that only
idly stirs at the passing zephyrs; the legs like piston-rods
strike on; when the pleasure is like that almost of
dull narcotics; one realises only dimly that one is
moving. At such times as these, coming from
one knows not whence, and one feels too weak to search
back to discover, there flit across the mind strange
fragments, relevant, as they seem, to nothing whatever
present.

When a journey has been made one way, the trick has
been done; the superfluous energy which inspired it
has found escape; the way to return is not by walking.
A friend to fatigue is this, that in walking back
one is not on a voyage of discovery; one knows the
way and very much what one will see on it; one knows
the distance. In fact, the fruit has been plucked:
the bloom is gone; to walk back would be like tedious
marching with a regiment. One should return resting.
On trains one returns from a journey.

Whoso hath life, one thinks as his journey draws to
its close, let him live it! What does it profit
a man, if he gain the whole world and never know his
own soul?

III

GOING TO ART EXHIBITIONS

There are two opposing views as to going to art exhibitions.
And much with a good deal of reason may be said on
both sides. There is one very vigorous attitude
which holds that the pictures are the thing.
This, indeed, is a perfectly ponderable theory.
But it may be questioned whether in its ardour it
does not go a little far. For it affirms that
people are a confounded nuisance at art exhibitions,
and should not be permitted to be there, to distract
one’s attention from the peaceful contemplation
of works of art, and to infuriate one by their asinine
remarks in the holy presence of beauty. I have
heard it declared with very impressive spirit, and
reasoned with much force, that only one person, or
at most only one person and his chosen companion, should
be allowed in an art gallery at a time. It is
debatable, however, whether this intellectually aristocratic
idea is altogether practicable. On the other
hand, was it not even Little Billie who found the people
at art exhibitions frequently more interesting than
the pictures?

Anyhow, persons who write about art exhibitions confine
themselves exclusively to the subject of art.
When they gossip it is about the pictures, the painters,
and the sculpture. True, of course, this is
their job, and then, these persons go on press days
and so only see, outside of that which is intentionally
exhibited, other critics.